Allergy FYI

A couple of weeks ago, when Jaxon came to me after class at church, he told me he was itchy. I figured he was hot in his clothes. We got home, and for about two hours, he said nothing more about it. Then he came to Phill with red cheeks and said, "Dad, my body itches."

Phill helped him undress, and lo and behold--he had hives on his back, his stomach, legs, waist (especially at the back), chest, and face--especially the cheeks. We were perplexed and mildly alarmed. We wondered if his treat in Primary had caused this, but didn't get an answer when we called his teachers.

So then we wondered about other things--had he been in contact with some sort of strong soap? Had a bug bit him? Had we fed him something new? The answers to all three, as far as we knew--no, no, no.

We decided to give him a half-dose of Benadryl. Wouldn't you know--the hives went away completely. So we knew that we were dealing with an allergic reaction of some sort....we just had no clue what it was. The hives did return that night. And the next day. And the day after that. They always responded with Benadryl, and they weren't covering a huge portion of his skin.

Anyway, 3 days in, I finally realized that the hives were where his clothes touched him most--on his back towards his armpits. At the waistband of his underwear. On his cheeks, where his shirt would brush his face as I brought it down over his head. On his calves where his jeans touched his skin. I called my grandma (the Allergy Queen) to run our theory by her, and with her confirmation, decided it must be the new laundry detergent we had just purchased. Tide with lavender.

I lamented to my grandma that I'd have to throw out or give away an entire box of detergent, but she told me I could just give the clothes an extra rinse and be fine. And guess what? She was absolutely right. We've not had another hives incident since.